On September 11 2019 21:09 Poopi wrote:I don't have sound at work, what is Maru saying?

He prepped for playing Mech, but Rogue told him to not use it. Apparently Rogue helped a lot. Rogue told him to change his King's Cove strategy.

Another proof that Maru is terrible himself and can only win if his teammates plan every map for him

i think it's obvious at this point lmao

excels at preparation tournaments

disappears at weekenders

is decimated by the smartest person on his team, sOs

he is greatly helped by the brainpower of his team

Well. That would explain why he was also strong in pro league.

Nevertheless. To win multiple championship you still have to have high base skill even if you prepare very well.

Maru is very similar to Fantasy in Brood War. Many argue if Oov wasn't there to feed him builds when preparing for his opponents, that he would have never had the success he did.

What makes you think it's jin air and not Maru himself making the builds though? Even when Maru was on prime he managed to 4-0 Inno with cheesy counter builds.

He also usually beats his fellow jin air players in GSL as well. He only loses to them in weekenders were preparation isn't much of a factor.

Purely based of the fact that in his interview he said Rogue was giving him advice build orders between games. This may not have been the case for every series ever, but in this instance it correlates well with Fantasy.

On September 12 2019 01:25 The_Red_Viper wrote:Noone is denying that he has less success in weekenders, that statement is obvious. Why that is exactly is up for debate, and the grand narrative that he needs prep is rather so-so as far as i can tell. I already gave reasons why. Maru is consistently at the top of the korean ladder as well, that's another thing to consider, ladder play is purely based on what people would consider the base skill level.

You asked how it can be that he loses to them at weekenders while he beats them every time in code s (i guess since he won code s), well he played stats and sOs once each in code s for example. That is what i meant with probabilities, your sample size is ridiculously low to make any such statements.

But sure go ahead and keep on perpetuating this "maru sucks at weekenders because there is no prep" stuff if you want. Funnily enough he lost to stats in these "weekenders" in the first round each, the round where you could prep. Oh NO!

edit: one more thing to consider, because you compare weekend vs starleague success over his whole career while most of the starleague success was recently, it also paints a really flawed picture, especially because you only care about winning. Before he dominated starleagues he won 2 while having other good showings in them, plus having good showings at weekenders here and there as well, like ro4 finishes. You are arguing extremely disingenuously, not that i am surprised!

Well, it's your own fault to reply to him

But, how about the reason is that it simply hurts to play weekenders? Maru was confirmed now twice(and that's just what my memory can recall) with wrist/arm issues. It may simple be that by the end of a weekender Maru's health is broken and he has to slow down. He had several high placings in the career and he fails(unless he bombs out right away) in RO4/8, which could point to that. He wouldn't be the first to do that. The only difference is that he accepts the invites to them even though he probably doesn't want to show the best of Maru. This would explain also why he shows to groups and plays worse - groups can be pretty long.

I imagine France should be able to take this unless Lilbow is busy practicing for Starcraft III. | KadaverBB is my fairy ban mother.

Yayy, Rogue broke the curse. And it took drunk Zest to do that :D Nice ! Very happy with results today, and the Maru vs Ragna games were even really good to watch.

The whole Maru debate... I think its ridiculous to think that Maru is only good when he can prepare, when preparation seems to be his biggest weakness his entire career.Just look at how Maru wins or loses his matches. If he wins, he does not do so with a good strategic build. He was most famous for destroying Toss without Vikings in HOTS (something which was unthinkable for other players to even try). He did stupid mine drop builds against Phoenix and was successful with them. "Failed proxy rax" into win are his trademark at this point. I am sure there are other examples, but the point is, Marus biggest weakness is his "game intelligence" and strategic preparation. It has always been this way. Its his godlike execution and insane skill that often time win him a game even though he is behind after opening, or even though the meta is not favorable to Terran (remember Maru was often times the only Terran who advanced far in tournies when others struggled).On the other hand if Maru loses, he looks like a total scrub. He fails on all fronts and even his raw skill cant save him there. This is just speculation on my part, but it looks like he just dislikes travel and does not have the mentality and tenacity to be successful on weekenders.

Today during Maru interview, he mentioned that Rogue helped him with strats. Its not surprising at all, as I said above Maru was always weaker in that. But we cant just blame it on preparation. If you dont have good enough game sense and outright choose bad strats against your next opponent, it does not matter how much you prepare you will still be at a disadvantage.

On September 12 2019 00:37 Fango wrote:Lol how Maru's initial build orders mostly failed here and he won by just out playing ragnarok in the lategame. Yet people still chalk up his wins to preparation. Most of the time his build orders don't even give him advantage in games.

In the final against Classic he had basically no unique builds, he just reacted to whatever Classic was trying to pull. In the TY final he did the same proxies every game which didn't really accomplish much.

Jin air mastermind strategy "just outmacro and multitask them to 10 minutes until you win". Maru is lucky he has that advice when other players don't.

On September 12 2019 00:37 Fango wrote:Lol how Maru's initial build orders mostly failed here and he won by just out playing ragnarok in the lategame. Yet people still chalk up his wins to preparation. Most of the time his build orders don't even give him advantage in games.

In the final against Classic he had basically no unique builds, he just reacted to whatever Classic was trying to pull. In the TY final he did the same proxies every game which didn't really accomplish much.

Jin air mastermind strategy "just outmacro and multitask them to 10 minutes until you win". Maru is lucky he has that advice when other players don't.

Hence why Maru confuses me, it appears that is the vague plan in some of his best games, but such an approach of ‘just outplay your opponent’ should prosper in weekenders more so than in a prep format, but he generally inverts that.

Did tasteless and artosis ever balance whine so much like they're doing now? They do it like a few times per game with Zerg, even though the great majority of the time we don't even hit broodlord/infestor.

I don't recall it being this bad even when Protoss was 7/8 and 5/8 of GSL ro8.

On September 12 2019 04:46 terribleplayer1 wrote:Did tasteless and artosis ever balance whine so much like they're doing now? They do it like a few times per game with Zerg, even though the great majority of the time we don't even hit broodlord/infestor.

I don't recall it being this bad even when Protoss was 7/8 and 5/8 of GSL ro8.

Some of the previous days casted were extremely long because of late game ZvT. They even had a record breaking 5 hour cast where they couldn't take the train home since it was closed by then. I think that is reason enough for anyone to burn out quickly on the matchup.

Plus, they aren't complaining about the entire matchup, but simply having Broodlord/IF fatigue. Even if Zerg loses, it's behind a 30 minute crawl. I honestly feel bad for both races. Terran has to try a hundred different ways to break Zerg and Zerg players are stuck playing 30 minutes of intense baby sitting because it gives them the best chance to win. Zergs definitely have the highest potential power in a game right now, but it's extremely demanding of the player.

On September 12 2019 03:01 MarianoSC2 wrote:Yayy, Rogue broke the curse. And it took drunk Zest to do that :D Nice ! Very happy with results today, and the Maru vs Ragna games were even really good to watch.

The whole Maru debate... I think its ridiculous to think that Maru is only good when he can prepare, when preparation seems to be his biggest weakness his entire career.Just look at how Maru wins or loses his matches. If he wins, he does not do so with a good strategic build. He was most famous for destroying Toss without Vikings in HOTS (something which was unthinkable for other players to even try). He did stupid mine drop builds against Phoenix and was successful with them. "Failed proxy rax" into win are his trademark at this point. I am sure there are other examples, but the point is, Marus biggest weakness is his "game intelligence" and strategic preparation. It has always been this way. Its his godlike execution and insane skill that often time win him a game even though he is behind after opening, or even though the meta is not favorable to Terran (remember Maru was often times the only Terran who advanced far in tournies when others struggled).On the other hand if Maru loses, he looks like a total scrub. He fails on all fronts and even his raw skill cant save him there. This is just speculation on my part, but it looks like he just dislikes travel and does not have the mentality and tenacity to be successful on weekenders.

Today during Maru interview, he mentioned that Rogue helped him with strats. Its not surprising at all, as I said above Maru was always weaker in that. But we cant just blame it on preparation. If you dont have good enough game sense and outright choose bad strats against your next opponent, it does not matter how much you prepare you will still be at a disadvantage.

Hmm, there are other parts of "preparation" than an opening buildorder. How to play the map, which units to make, how to drop, how to push and where to push, countering weaknesses and tendencies of your opponent throughout the game etc. I agree that how he opens is pretty much irrelevant for the game result but he opens in many different ways and forces his opponents to prepare for them all to not crumble early.

On September 12 2019 04:46 terribleplayer1 wrote:Did tasteless and artosis ever balance whine so much like they're doing now? They do it like a few times per game with Zerg, even though the great majority of the time we don't even hit broodlord/infestor.

I don't recall it being this bad even when Protoss was 7/8 and 5/8 of GSL ro8.

they said that terrans are having a hard time with BL infestor (true), and they said that BL infestor is less fun to watch than other compositions (opinion, and most people seem to agree)

i didn't hear any "balance whine," i think experienced commentators are allowed to express opinions on the metagame, and i think maybe you're looking too hard to get yourself triggered over balance chat

On September 12 2019 00:36 The_Red_Viper wrote:This whole argument wouldn't even exist if he did get other opponents in these weekenders. He lost like 4 series to stats/sOs, neither is surprising or an indication of being bad at the format. Stats is just really good, sOs is a teamkill which is always tricky and with sOs in mind even trickier. Maru has an incredibly high level of basic skill, that is his biggest strength if anything. This whole "he is good at prep" is a little ridiculous imo, it's usually not like he prepares some really wonky stuff to surprise his opponents, he basically proxy raxed every game vs TY in the finals where prep work would have been the most important (because he fears TY a lot).

It's a nice narrative which gets perpetuated due to coincidence more than anything.

Yes, a weird coincidence! A huge coincidence, actually. Can it really be a coincidence? Six starleagues, one weekender.His opponent can't be Stats, can't be sOs, can't be Classic, can't be Rogue...yet Maru beats them every time in Code S. How can it be?

Cause you know. No one really tries or take Code S seriously, they just don't care. Only Maru cares =)

Just want to throw out that there are more aspects to preparation than build orders. In weekenders you have to practice every matchup. In GSL RO8/4/2, you can grind tf out of one racial matchup all day every day. Maru's TvZ looked incredible today and his Tvp will look incredible in his RO4 match.

On September 12 2019 15:29 evanreyes94 wrote:Maru > Serral. He played like a god versus Ragnarok and dismantled him late game. If he can beat Ragnarok, he can definitely beat Serral no problem

Serral is a whole other beast than RagnaroK. On this patch Maru is the terran with the most chances to beat Serral but it's far from easy, TvZ is super tough.

TY is screwed for BlizzCon unless he has a miraculous run at Super Tournament, right?

Assuming Classic drops out, Rogue should quality for ST2, TY should make it to exactly the Ro4 and Dear should not qualify at all so both TY and Dear have exactly 3725 points at #8 and #9, so we probably get some hype bo5 to determine who gets the final seed like Naniwa won his back in 2013.

But yeah, the only way for TY to be at Blizzcon guaranteed without relying on anyone else is to win ST2. He needs to make up 675 points to Dear, 1100 points to Stats, 1125 to herO, and 625 points to Rogue who's still in the GSL, while currently being #10. It's growing unlikely. Still the best chance for Terrans, unless Gumiho out of nowhere.

B Maru was confirmed now twice(and that's just what my memory can recall) with wrist/arm issues. It may simple be that by the end of a weekender Maru's health is broken and he has to slow down.

Funny enough he has mentioned before he uses orthopedic wrist bands for that and if you look close enough before the matches, when he is adjusting his normal sport wristbands that he uses you can see he has a white wristband below that has more of an orthopedic look.